One Born Every 22 Seconds

One Born Every Minute tears from fathers who didn't
know they could love something as much as that as just then.
There.
On camera.
The, you can breathe now, sir moments that politely jab you in
the side every time you see a plastic bag in the wind,
or hear Kevin Spacey narrating some space stuff,
seeing people helping older people across the road, it's all there,
weightless in the back corner of their gaze, mane black and tidy,
every how-to manual from Haynes Ford Transit Connect to wiping tears from tired
faces
memorised
and rehearsed,
ready to impart to a smaller version of them:
a somewhat man about to become an somewhat Cezanne who's just been
given a paintbrush.

And the birth goes without a hitch,
they're unmarried, but it's fine
because I think this kid's in good hands,